A ribbon-cutting is planned Friday, Sept. 14 at 6 p.m. for the just-completed Calvary Worship Center at 501-505 Castle Road. A 7 p.m. dedication service will
follow. The public is invited.
Construction on the 35-foot-tall, 26,780-square-foot building for the non-denominational evangelical church began 13 months ago.
The keynote speaker will be Skip Heitzig, senior pastor of the Calvary Chapel of Albuquerque, N.M. Other speakers will be Dave Mott, a member of the Westside
church's board; Eric Cartier, senior pastor at Rocky Mountain Calvary Chapel (near Austin Bluffs); and Dion Elmore, senior pastor of the Calvary Fellowhip Fountain
Velley (and former assistant pastor here).
Also on hand will be Al Pittman, the Calvary Worship Center pastor, and his wife Norma. He came to the Springs 10 years ago from Albuquerque, where he had
been a member of Heitzig's staff. The Albuquerque chapel “is one of the largest in the American Southwest with 15,000 members,” according to John VanDerWege,
the Worship Center's assistant pastor of administration and finance.
As recently as last December, a summer completion had been foreseen for the new building. “But it took a little longer,” VanDerWege said. “It's been a pretty
horrendous weather year, with last winter's blizzards and this summer' rain.”
The new facility will expand the church's complex, which for nine years had consisted only of a 16,048-square-foot former shopping center on the 5.44-acre property
near King and 30th streets. Because of the greater space for church services, Calvary has reduce its number of Sunday services from three to two, he said. The times,
starting Sunday, Sept. 16, will be 8:45 and 10:45 a.m.